The Shooting Rampage in Arizona

It was obvious that no sooner did the media learn of the horrible shooting rampage on Saturday, January 9th, in Tucson, Arizona, that seriously wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six people, that liberal bloggers and commentators would begin blaming conservatives for the massacre. Even though the killer, a 22-year-old male, by the name of Jared Lee Loughner was not affiliated with any right-wing organization or group, he was immediately characterized as an anti-abortion right winger. Yet, his rambling thoughts on YouTube reveal an individual who was obviously not playing with a full deck.

Indeed Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, where the shooting took place, told reporters that the suspect had a troubled past and had mental problems. He said there had been earlier contact between Loughner and law enforcement after he had made death threats, although they had not been against Giffords.

Media watchdog Noel Sheppard noted: "It was fairly clear to anyone with an above room temperature intelligence quotient from the moment this story broke that liberal media members would immediately point fingers at conservatives. I was actually counting the minutes before the first such accusations were lodged, and was by no means surprised by what ensued.”But what about the assassin? It became quite clear from Sheriff Dupnik’s comments that the assassin was a mental case. So what do we actually know about this young assassin? What we do know is that he is a product of American public education. He writes: “I attended school: Thornydale elementary, Tortolita Middle School, Mountain View Highschool, Northwest Aztec Middle College, and Pima Community College.” So he had the full benefit of our wonderful public schools and community colleges that know how to teach everything but rational, logical thinking.

Several students and teachers at Pima Community College have already revealed that Loughner was disruptive in the classroom and actually frightened the students, who no doubt were reminded of shootings that have occurred in schools around the country by deranged individuals.. Indeed, one student was so frightened by Loughner that she sat close to the door of the classroom in order to get away as quickly as possible should he start shooting up the classroom.

It has also been revealed that the assassin set up some sort of altar in his backyard with a human skull as the centerpiece, indicating that he was a devil worshipper or into the occult. He also tried to enlist in the army and was rejected because he failed the drug test.

Also, shortly before the shooting, Loughner went to Walmart to buy an ammunition clip. The salesperson recognized that this individual was unbalanced and told him that they were out of that particular ammo clip. He then went to another Walmart where the salesperson sold him the clip. So Loughner managed to operate below the radar, which is how the 9/11 terrorists operated for months before planning their attack. Apparently the first Walmart salesperson failed to alert the police. We wonder what he or she thought after learning of the shooting rampage.

In addition, Loughner had engaged in a confrontational correspondence with Congresswoman Giffords, which may or may not have been given to the local police for investigation. Why is it so difficult for the government to actually protect the citizenry from mayhem perpetrated by deranged individuals?

Students in public schools these days are closely tracked and monitored by computer record-keeping systems that know just about everything about a student: their test scores, their attitudes, their health, their interests, etc. Did the schools know anything about Loughner that would have indicated any future violent behavior as an assassin? Was he on Ritalin, or Adderall, or other such mind-altering drugs that are known to create changed mental behavior? Was he a heavy marijuana user?Loughner also claims to be an avid reader. He writes: “I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver's Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.”

Perhaps he will tell us what he exactly learned from all of these books, including Hitler’s famous Mein Kampf, or Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, books which few American students read, or what he learned in school or from his parents. On his now deleted MySpace page, Loughner wrote a series of disjointed rants, revealing his inability to write a coherent sentence with a rational thinking process.

Of course, it is impossible to know what an individual will do at different times in one’s life. But when he purchased a gun at a local gun-show, the salesman evidently saw nothing in the youth that would have made him suspicious that the weapon would be used in an attempt to assassinate a member of Congress. The buyer had no criminal record.

On Twitter the comments of pro-abortionist users assume that Loughner was a pro-lifer who tried to kill Representative Giffords, a Democrat, because she was pro-choice. But this assumption is based on no evidence whatsoever. But leave it to the liberals to make the most of this opportunity to demonize conservatives and pro-lifers and call for censorship of conservative talk shows and columnists.

Of course it was expected that the liberal media would take especial aim at Sarah Palin, accusing her of aiding and abetting the assassin because during the election campaign, she “targeted” Democrat Giffords for defeat. But Giffords won. So much for Palin’s extraordinary political power.However, one user on Twitter, Caitie Parker, wrote that she went to high school, college and was in a band with Loughner, and said: "As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy."According to the local press, Loughner is "described by friends and former classmates as a loner, prone to dressing in black regalia of boots, trench coat and baggy pants even on the hottest days." He was removed from Pima Community College "for causing disruptions in classrooms and the library, college officials said. His dispute with college officials led him to post a bizarre YouTube video declaring the college illegal under the U.S. Constitution and culminated in his suspension from campus."

So what are we to make of all of this? Three days before the shooting in Arizona, a student by the name of Robert Butler, Jr., a senior at Millard South High School in Omaha, Nebraska, shot and killed the Assistant Principal, Dr. Vicki Kaspar. It all started on January 5, 2011, when Butler was suspended after he drove his car onto the school’s football field. After being escorted out of the school by security, he returned several hours later and shot both the Principal and Assistant Principal, after which he fled and was later found dead in a car after committing suicide.This was the latest in a whole series of school murders, the most famous of which was the massacre at Columbine High School, at Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999. Since then there have been over 55 shootings in schools in the United States.

In other words, something is going on in the American education system that is producing some very unhealthy behavior among a small but significant number of students. No one has bothered to examine the curriculum, the teaching methods, the medications students are taking to determine what may be causing all of this murderous behavior. We also continue to have a high number of student suicides, most of which go unreported in the media to avoid copycat behavior. Are we condemned to live with this mayhem because no one wants to look into its causes? I’m afraid so.

The other prominent victim who was killed during the shooting rampage, John M. Roll, was chief federal judge in Arizona. He was appointed in 1991 by the senior George Bush. Ironically, Roll had been the target of hundreds of threats in February 2009 after he allowed a lawsuit filed by illegal immigrants against a rancher to go forward. "They cursed him out, threatened to kill his family, said they'd come and take care of him. They really wanted him dead," a law enforcement official told The Washington Post in May 2009. But it took a madman to kill him.

Another victim was 9-year-old Christina Green, granddaughter of former manager Dallas Green of the Philadelphia Phillies. She and the judge just happened to be at the Safeway Supermarket parking lot where Giffords was meeting with a small group of constituents. The wrong place at the wrong time.

As of this writing, Gabrielle Giffords’ condition is stable, and the doctors believe she has a good chance of recovery. The bullet went through her brain but did not impair her faculties. That was a good sign. We all pray for her full recovery.

Of course, liberals will call for more gun-control laws. They think that if you deprive the entire population of owning guns, that will stop these occasional shootings by madmen. But what they fail to understand is that life is full of risks, particularly in a free society where even madmen have rights.

If we look back at all the assassinations and shootings that have occurred in America we can see that government is not very effective in preventing them. A communist shot John F. Kennedy in Dallas, despite the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was under surveillance by the authorities. The shooter who tried to kill President Reagan was another nutcase operating under the radar. So was the killer of John Lennon. Lincoln’s assassin was not a nutcase but a Confederate sympathizer seeking revenge.The simple fact is that the vast majority of Americans, regardless of political beliefs, are decent, law-abiding citizens. They may get angry, but during the two years of Obama’s socialist reign there have been no physical attacks against any of the Democrats who have tried to impose socialism on America. Indeed, this lack of physical violence by conservative opponents of the regime should be seen as a sign of their basic belief in our political system that allows peaceful change by way of the ballot box, which is exactly what occurred in November.

This Arizona shooting was the work of a deranged individual who was identified as a potential killer by his classmates and teachers, yet nothing was done by the local police to prevent him from acting out his desire to kill. Obviously, government cannot protect us from such potential killers no matter how many red flags fly over their heads. In a country with as many psychiatrists as we have, it is still impossible to identify a killer until he has killed. Which, of course, is too late.

But we take risks every time we drive on the highways. More people are killed in auto accidents than are killed by madmen shooting at Congressmen. Yet we accept the deaths on the highway without any attempt to curtail driving. Our freedom is more precious and important than locking up all the madmen in insane asylums. Hopefully, this particular madman will get the death penalty.

Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of nine books on education including NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, The Whole Language/OBE Fraud, and The Victims of Dick & Jane and Other Essays. Of NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, former U.S. Senator Steve Symms of Idaho said: “Every so often a book is written that can change the thinking of a nation. This book is one of them.” Mr. Blumenfeld’s columns have appeared in such diverse publications as Reason, The New American, The Chalcedon Report, Insight, Education Digest, Vital Speeches, WorldNetDaily, and others.